Press Release - Sweeden Takes Sexual Behaviors Off Their Disease List

The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare is declassifying sexual behaviors as mental illnesses to avoid strengthening prejudice against the behaviors, the Swedish news service Tidningarnas Telegrambyra reported last week. The diagnoses which will soon disappear from the disease registry include sadomasochism, fetishism, fetishistic transvestitism, transvestitism, gender identity disorder in youth, and multiple disorders of sexual preferences. NCSF applauds Lars-Erik Holm, the head of the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen), who made the decision to declassify the behaviors because they are not illnesses in and of themselves, nor are they something perverse. "These diagnoses are rooted in a time when everything other than the heterosexual missionary position were seen as sexual perversions," Holm said.

"The NCSF's DSM Revision Project has the same goal to change or remove these harmful diagnoses," says Susan Wright. "We know from the hundreds of requests for help that NCSF gets every year through our Incident Response program that Sexual Sadism, Sexual Masochism, Fetishism and Transvestic Fetishism diagnoses in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistic Manual (DSM) reinforce the negative stereotypes and stigma against alternative sexual behaviors."

To support NCSF's DSM Revision Project, please sign the petition (www.ncsfreedom.org) that will be sent to the APA urging them to adhere to scientific research when revising the diagnoses in the DSM. To find out more about this project, read the NCSF and the ITCR: NCSF Foundation's White Paper posted on www.ncsfreedom.org